The Letter of the Law
by lightningmaystrike
Summary: SQ AU: Regina is a law student at Harvard working over the summer as an intern at Gold and Associates law firm. Emma has been putting herself through college by working as a secretary/assistant and the Boston Police Department and taking night classes. She is studying criminal justice with the goal to become a detective.
1. First Meeting

It was almost one o'clock on a bright Wednesday afternoon in June. Regina still had at least 10 minutes left on her lunch break and was sitting at her desk eating a sandwich she had just bought at the Subway down the street. She was just taking advantage of the chance to check her personal email when the phone in the small office rang. Usually Regina would answer the phone and report any important information to Mr. Gold, or if it was important, transfer the call to Gold's office. This time however, she buzzed it straight over to Gold without answering. She was still on her lunch break and was in the middle of reading an email with important information about registering for her Law Boards. She still wouldn't be taking them for another year, but there was a lot to do in order to prepare, and she wanted to make sure she knew when all the deadlines were.

About five minutes later, Gold poked his head through the office door.

"Regina, we got a call, let's get going."

"Get going where?" Regina asked confused.

"To the precinct of course!" Gold exclaimed, as though that should have been obvious.

"Why am I going with you to the precinct?" Regina asked cautiously. She had been working as an intern in Gold's law firm since the beginning of her summer vacation, but so far all she had been doing was paperwork, and once in a while she got to observe Gold defending a client in trial. She had never before gone with him to the police station.

"Because," Gold answered excitedly, "I have a client in interrogation, and you are going to observe. See what I do up close and personal!"

"Wait really?" Regina asked, eager to get some more real world lawyer experience, "Is that allowed?"

"Oh yes it is dearie," Gold answered with a smirk, "I just talked to the police chief and we got written consent from the client, so you are good to go to sit in on the interrogation. Now come on, we don't want to keep the lovely detectives waiting do we?"

Regina quickly shoved the rest of her sandwich into the mini fridge next to her desk, and got to her feet. Silently she followed Gold out of the office and to his car in the parking lot.

"Now, while we're there, you are not to say anything" Gold began as he unlocked the car and got into the drivers seat.

"Yes sir," Regina replied as she climbed into the passenger side.

"You are coming as an observer only. This is a very important case, and I assured the client that your presence would not in any way put him at a disadvantage. He has been brought in on a very serious charge, and would rather not spend the rest of his life in jail. You are merely coming to see what an interrogation is like, and I would like you to stay closely involved with this case from now on so that you can get the experience of following a single case from beginning to end. I know that you probably want more out of this internship than just reading and filing random court reports."

"It would be an honor to work with you on a case." Regina answered, and she couldn't help the grin spreading across her face. She would never have complained to Gold, but she was feeling rather disappointed in her internship up to this point. She knew it was important for her resume to work in a law firm, especially such a prestigious law firm as Gold & Associates, but she had hoped for more hands on experience than what she had been doing thus far.

"I have been watching you over the past few weeks since you started working here," said Gold, "I was not sure about you at first, but you have proven yourself as a smart and hard worker, so I would like to give you as many opportunities to learn as possible. Trust me getting on the job experience and being exposed to real cases will help you enormously when you have to take your boards."

As Mr. Gold and Regina made their way into the precinct, Regina had to work to fight her nerves. This was her first time having direct contact with a client or the police, and she was determined to present herself as a confident professional. She knew that when she finally passed her boards and began working in the area she would be dealing with the detectives at Boston PD on a regular basis, so she wanted to ensure she made a good first impression. Mr. Gold on the other hand had done this many times before, so they were quick to find the police chief's office to check in.

As they approached the open door, Regina thought at first the office was empty. The large desk facing towards the door was vacant, though piles of paperwork were strewn across it as though someone left while in the middle of something. Mr. Gold however knocked confidently on the door, to inform any occupants of their presence. To Regina's surprise, a woman's voice strongly called out to them to enter. Upon stepping into the office, Regina noticed it was larger than it had appeared from the doorway, and another large desk along with many file cabinets and a refrigerator occupied another half of the room to the left and out of sight from the doorway. Sitting behind the second desk, busily shuffling through papers and running documents through a portable scanner was a young blond woman who could not have been older than Regina herself. Regina stared at her for a moment, taking in the girl's red leather jacket, and messy curls.

Mr. Gold cleared his throat, causing the blonde to finally look up from her work.

"We are to represent Killian Jones in his interrogation." Gold stated evenly.

"Right, sorry we've been a bit busy today," replied the blonde putting down the stack of papers she was still holding and getting to her feet.

"Chief Nolan is actually on his lunch break right now, but I believe Detectives Red and White are waiting for you in interrogation," she continued.

"Are all of your detectives named after colors then?" Regina asked rather sarcastically, eyebrow raised in amusement. Gold shot her a warning look, but she didn't care as she looked back at the blonde woman whose eyes were now shifting from Gold to Regina, a slight look of curiosity glossing over them as Regina held her gaze. The blonde however just chuckled and replied

" No, actually it's just those two, although, I always found it a funny coincidences that they ended up partners. They almost need a third one so they could call themselves team Red, White, and Blue."

Regina merely returned her a smirk, before glancing back over at the blonde's desk to read the name plaque. "Emma Swan – Secretary/Assistant".

"If you will follow me, I can show you to the interrogation room." Emma said, leading they way out of the office.

Emma had been working as Chief Nolan's secretary at the precinct for about 3 years now, so she had met nearly all the major lawyers in their area multiple times. She was actually most familiar with Mr. Gold, as he was arguably the most well-known and successful lawyer in all of Massachusetts. However, to her best knowledge, he had never brought an assistant along to interrogation with him before. She was interested to find out who this striking young woman was, and how she ended up working for someone as successful and influential as Gold. Working in the precinct, Emma did not often get a chance to interact with many other women, especially women her age. With the exception of Detectives Red and White, she was the only woman in the building. As it was, Detective White was at least forty, and Detective Red not much younger. Not that it mattered much seeing as neither of them paid much attention to Emma's existence anyways. As Emma led Gold and the new woman through the precinct, She couldn't help but hope that this stunning young brunette would become a regular partner in Mr. Gold's interrogations. She argued it would be nice to have a woman her age to talk to once in a while.

The three continued in silence until they met Red and White waiting outside the interrogation room.

"Detectives," Emma said, nodding at them in acknowledgment before turning to leave. As she began to make her way back down the hall, she just managed to over hear the beginning of Mr. Gold's conversation with the detectives.

"Detectives Red and White, so good to see you again" Gold said smoothly, no doubt shaking their hands, ever the professional. "This is my intern, Regina Mills. She is a 3rd year Law student at Harvard who has been sitting in on some of my cases. I arranged permission with Chief Nolan and my client for her to observe this meeting."

_So. Regina Mills, _thought Emma, _Harvard Law student. Well she is either extremely smart, or extremely rich. Maybe both. At least she's got a sense of humor though. _And with that last thought, Emma pushed Regina Mills to the back of her mind. She had too much work to get done today to let herself get distracted by her curiosity.


	2. Interrogation

**I just want to thank everyone who read, reviewed, followed, or favorited this story. I haven't written anything seriously in a while, but I've been so inspired by Swan Queen and Swan Queen fan fic lately that I decided to write some. I have the first 4 chapters done so I should be good to keep a regular weekly update schedule until the end of my term at school, and then I should have more time to write anyways so updates may even be more often, we shall see :) Hope you enjoy chapter 2!**

* * *

"_Detectives Red and White, so good to see you again" Gold said smoothly, no doubt shaking their hands, ever the professional. "This is my intern, Regina Mills. She is a 3__rd__ year Law student at Harvard who has been sitting in on some of my cases. I arranged permission with Chief Nolan and my client for her to observe this meeting." _

Regina politely shook the hands of the detectives, and the four entered the interrogation room. Killian Jones was already seated at the table, hands cuffed in front of him. Detectives Red and White seated themselves confidently facing him as Regina and Gold slid into their seats beside him. Jones had refused to be interrogated without a lawyer when the detectives originally brought him in, and now seemed to think he was the one interrogating them.

"Well now that we are all here, why don't you tell me exactly why I have been brought in for questioning?" he said calmly with an air of confidence that made it seem like he couldn't care less about the situation. He had been brought in only a few hours earlier, and still carried the distinct scent of alcohol.

"Mr. Jones," Detective White began sternly, "Do you know who this man is?" She slid a photograph of a slightly chubby young man wearing a red stocking cap across the table.

"Why yes, that would be my mate Smee. What of him?" Jones shot back.

"Mr. Jones, when exactly was the last time you saw _your mate Smee_?" Detective Red interjected, a slightly mocking ton in her voice as she parroted his phrasing.

"You see here we have a problem," replied Jones " I know for sure I saw Smee two nights ago, however he may have come out to the pub with me last night as well but I can't remember a damn thing from about 8:00pm to about 10:00 am this morning."

"I agree, that is a problem, seeing as my next question was going to 'where were you between the hours of 11:00pm and 3:00am?'" White remarked, leaning back in her chair to fully take in Jones's appearance.

"I am going to take a gamble and guess that something has happened to Mr. Smee here, and you want to pin the blame on me," Jones stated.

"Mr. Jones, I would advise you to refrain from saying anything not pertaining to the questions they ask you," Gold interjected.

"Right, sorry boss," replied Jones, making a faux bow to Gold and rolling his eyes. Regina wondered if he was still drunk, although supposedly he had been in holding at the precinct or a good 5 hours. Gold gritted his teeth, but remained calm and professional.

"As it turns out Mr. Jones, you are correct," White continued, "I would be impressed if I didn't think you only knew because you were the one responsible. Mr. Smee was found dead last night at the docks. Stabbed straight through the heart."

"Detective White," Gold began in his usual condescending tone, "you are very close to accusing my client here of murder without providing a scrap of evidence linking him to the crime. Yes Mr. Jones here was acquainted with the victim, however so are hundreds of other people in Boston. In fact I am sure if you go to the pub Jones was at last night you will be able to find someone who can vouch for his presence. I think it obvious by his state of drunken hangover this morning that he likely spent the entire night there."

The interrogation continued much in this manner; the detectives strongly trying to get a confession, Jones continuing his confident blasé demeanor, and Gold growing ever more frustrated with the detectives seemingly unfounded conviction of his client's guilt and his client's lack of common sense about when to keep his mouth shut. Regina sat silently observing it all, wondering why on earth Jones had gone to so much trouble to hire someone as expensive as Gold to represent him if he was not even going to listen to Gold's advise. The entire interrogation was putting her in increasingly worse mood, and she flipped back and forth between wanting to yell at the detectives that they had no evidence to stand on and wanting to punch Jones in the face for his annoying attitude and stupidity. About an hour in Gold announced that he thought they all needed a bit of a break to cool off, and sent Regina out to get coffee from the break room for all five of the interrogation participants.

As she slowly made her way back to the interrogation room, a tray of 5 coffees in tow, she pondered the strange dynamic between Gold and the detectives. They seemed to easily switch back and forth from being professional and friendly to figuratively ripping each other's heads off within seconds.

"Wow must be a doozy of an interrogation going on in there."

The voice jerked Regina out of her thoughts and she looked around.

"What?" she replied, spotting the source of the comment walking towards her.

"I said it must be one hell of an interrogation going on in there," the blond secretary repeated.

"oh, yeah. How can you tell?"

"Well for one thing you are carrying five cups of coffee back to the interrogation room. Gold and the detectives only go for coffee breaks if it's getting really intense and they are afraid of loosing their temper. For another, you had an odd mix of a frustrated and dazed expression on your face a second ago and have walked about four doors past your interrogation room without realizing it." Emma chuckled softly as Regina's cheeks grew slightly hot, realizing Emma was correct.

"Right," Regina replied trying to hide her embarrassment, as she turned around to head in the right direction of the interrogation room.

"Well good luck in there!" Emma called back to her as she continued down the hall past Regina. "Gold and the detectives may have a good rapport in the office, but I've heard it get's messy once they're in the interrogation room." The blonde looked back at Regina, smirking at the startled look that had appeared on her face. So far nothing in the interrogation had gotten too far out of hand, but if Emma was right about things getting messy when they lost their tempers, Regina wasn't so sure she wanted to be trapped in the interrogation room when that happened.

By the time got out of interrogation it was almost five o'clock. Gold left Regina out in the main lobby of the precinct saying he wanted to check in with the Police Chief now that he was back in the office. Regina leaned up against the wall outside of the office, closing her eyes for a minute and bringing her fingers up to massage her temples. She could feel a head ache coming on and was inwardly thankful that this time she only had to be an observer. She couldn't imagine how Gold must feel having to go through interrogations like this constantly and be able to think on his feet at every turn. She supposed she would have to learn though, and hoped it would get easier as she got more experience.

"So, Regina Mills, Harvard Law. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Regina recognized the voice of Emma Swan, the secretary, and opened her eyes to find her standing directly in front of her, looking at her expectantly.

"Oh, well I'm interning with Gold for the summer. He's trying to get me as much real world law experience as possible before I take my boards next year," Regina answered slightly confused by the blonde's presence.

"Ah, that would explain why I've never seen you around here before!" exclaimed Emma, smiling brightly at her. "I'm Emma."

"I know, Emma Swan," Regina said without thinking, the image of the nameplate on Emma's desk still fresh in her mind. Emma looked at her surprised at first, and then curiously.

"So, are you going to be accompanying Gold on all his interrogations from now on?" she asked.

"I'm not really sure. I wasn't actually expecting to come today. I know he wants me to follow the Killian Jones case from beginning to end, but maybe he will let me observe some others as well, who knows," Regina shrugged.

"Well if you ever do come back, we should get lunch or something," Emma offered, "you know there is a serous lack of women my age around here, so I have to say it was quite a nice surprise to see you walk into the precinct."

"I can imagine," Regina laughed, feeling her headache recede a bit as talking to the blonde seemed to put her in a better mood. "I might just take you up on that, I definitely could use some winding down after being stuck in that interrogation room."

"oooh did someone not enjoy their first interrogation?" Emma teased, " What happened to it being 'great real world experience to prepare for the boards'?"

"Oh har har," Regina scoffed, "why don't you try being stuck in a tiny room for hours while Red, White, and Gold scream their heads off."

"Hey would you look at that! There is another color to join their team!" Emma exclaimed triumphantly.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Oh come on, remember earlier when you were joking about their names being colors? I was just wrong, it's Gold not Blue!"

"Oh my God, I cannot believe you are still thinking about that," Regina rolled her eyes exasperatedly. "It wasn't even that funny."

"Hey, suit yourself," Emma laughed. " It sure made my day just a bit more interesting."

"If my terrible sarcastic joke made your day more interesting, you must have a hell of a boring job," Regina stated.

"Yes, well, you gotta do what you gotta do," Emma sighed as her mood became more serious.

Just then Gold appeared striding back out of the office.

"Come on Regina, time to go if you want to make it home by six." He continued walking right on past her, not waiting as he headed out to the parking lot.

"I guess that's my cue to leave," said Regina, "It was nice to meet you Emma."

"Likewise," Emma replied, shaking Regina's outstretched hand. Their eyes locked for a moment before Regina pulled herself away and strode quickly across the lobby and out into the night.


	3. Light Weight

**A/N: Ok so I decided to have fun with some drunk Regina, and i know it's a little trop-y but it was fun to write, so I don't care haha plus I wanted them to meet outside of the precinct, and I already had Emma working at the club planned out in the character outline so it made sense :) anyways hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

On the silent drive home, Regina couldn't help but think about the cheerful blonde woman who somehow managed to put her at ease after a long day. She wondered if it had something to do with Emma's lovely bright smile. She smiled to herself just thinking about it. She realized it had been the easiest conversation she had had in a long time. With her final year of law school and subsequently her board examinations approaching she found herself mostly dragged into stressful conversations about classes and studying and everything that needed to be done to prepare. All of her friends from school were just as stressed as she was, some probably more so, and she found it was nice to have laid back fun conversation for once that didn't end up morphing into questions about her plans for various studying techniques or job opportunities.

As the week wore on though, Regina found she did not have time to think much about Emma Swan as her workload nearly doubled. She was now not only responsible for all her usual filling duties, but also for going through all her notes from the Killian Jones interrogation with a fine tooth comb to help Gold somehow build up a case for him. As it turned out, the detectives had gone to the pub to verify Killian's alibi, only time find that while he had definitely been their early in the evening, no one in the pub had seen him after 1:00 am. That apparently gave him a two-hour window where he could have gone down to the docks and murdered Smee. They did not however bring Jones back into interrogation, so Regina and Gold were left with nothing to do but try to investigate where Jones may have gone during those two hours on their own. If they could get him to remember something, anything from that night, or find someone who may have seen him after 1:00 am, they might still have a chance of getting him a solid alibi.

Emma for her part had been working as secretary/assistant to Chief Nolan for long enough that all her work was pretty mindless and automatic now. Unfortunately, this left her plenty of opportunity for her mind to cast back to the beautiful brunette who had wandered into the precinct on Wednesday afternoon. She could not explain why, but the blonde felt intrigued by Regina Mills, and had a mysterious urge to learn more about her. Unfortunately she did not see the law student again that week, and she found herself unreasonably disappointed when the clock struck five on Friday night signaling the end to her day at the precinct, and the last opportunity to possibly see Regina. She quickly packed up her things as she only had a couple hours to get dinner and change before she started her shift at the Rabbit Hole.

Emma had been working two jobs ever since she got out of high school in order to pay her own way through college. She started out at the Rabbit Hole as a full time hostess when she was 19. By the time she got her job at Boston PD, which paid infinitely better, she was already 21 and was able to switch to cocktail waitressing at the Rabbit Hole on weekends only. Contrary to what many would think, Emma didn't actually mind it. Sure Friday's were always tiring, having to go from a full 8 hour day at the precinct a long shift at the club that she wouldn't get home from until maybe 3 am, but she found waitressing at the club could be just as fun as going to the club after a long week. She found it extremely entertaining to spend her night people watching the random array of people who came into the club each night. She and her co-worker Lacey routinely placed bets on who would have the lowest alcohol tolerance out of a party, and were constantly competing over who could get the largest tip from a single individual.

By eleven o'clock, Emma had gotten her second wind, her disappointment of the afternoon completely forgotten. The tips were pouring in, and the upbeat dance music had put her in a wonderful mood. She was leaning up against the bar, waiting for her next tray of drinks to deliver when Lacey came prancing up to her.

"Emma Emma Emmaa! I just hit the jackpot!" she shouted, jumping up and down.

"Really? How?" asked Emma, wondering what had gotten the other waitress so excited.

"I just took ordered from a group of richy bitchy Harvard student's and you know what that means? BIG MONEYYYYYY. I'm going to serve them so good I'm going to have $200 dollars in tips by the time they leave" she cackled. Emma rolled her eyes.

"You know Lacey, just because they go to Harvard doesn't mean they are richy or bitchy. Don't get your hopes up to much. How do you know they're Harvard student's anyways?"

"I heard the blonde one say she thought getting into Harvard was supposed to have been the hardest thing she had to do, but now something about law boards or I don't know I was only half listening, but she definitely mentioned going to Harvard. Anyways come over here and look, this is going to be a great group to bet on."

"Just a sec," Emma laughed, "I need to deliver these drinks quick. What table number are they at?"

"Table 7, but meet me at table 12 so that we can make bets without them noticing us spying on them. Hurray up, I'm taking their first set of drinks over now, but I think it's gonna get interesting fast."

Emma headed off in the direction of table 17 to deliver her tray of drinks, and then doubled back to table 12 where Lacey was waiting. It wasn't until she was standing listening to Lacey yapping about what she had found out about the Harvard students that she actually looked over at table 7 to see who they were. She felt her mouth drop open in surprise. There was a tall thin blonde woman sitting next to a man who appeared to be her boyfriend, but sitting across from them in the booth was none other than Regina Mills. She was wearing a tight blue dress tonight quite different from the professional pantsuit she had worn to the interrogation, and was sipping delicately from the straw of her lemon drop.

"So anyways, that is why I'm betting on the brunette chick," Lacey was saying.

"What?" replied Emma, finally remembering that Lacey was talking to her.

"I said I'm betting on the brunette chick because it sounded like the blond and her man are frequent partiers, but they had to drag the other chick out tonight. Have you even been listening to anything I just said?" Lacey asked incredulously.

"Oh right, yeah…" said Emma, trying to get her mind back into the conversation, "I don't know, it might be the blonde she looks pretty skinny, might be a light weight."

"All right then, you're on. 20 bucks, if it's the brunette I win, if it's the blonde you win."

With that Lacey scurried off, and Emma realized that she was being flagged down by table 14 for more drinks. Throughout the next hour, Emma found herself constantly keeping an eye on table 7. She tried to tell herself it was so that she could keep track of how the bet was going, but deep down she knew it probably had more to do with her curiosity about Gold's intern. Around 12:30 am, Emma realized that she was loosing the bet. Regina was slumped down in her seat, staring off into space and sloppily stirring her drink with her straw where as the blonde girl and her boyfriend were still sitting up strait, talking to each other and might even be able to pass as completely sober. She started making her way over to the table, thinking that if she could get Regina to not drink anymore, maybe the blonde girl would catch up to her drunkenness by the end of the night, possibly saving Emma the bet. Unfortunately Lacey intercepted her.

"nuh uh uh , no trolling for my big tips and no cheating."

"I wasn't going to cheat!" Exclaimed Emma in mock offense.

"Sure you weren't," replied Lacey sarcastically, "any ways you owe me twenty bucks. I'm calling it now. Pretty girl brunette is practically asleep over there."

"How do you know she's drunk? Maybe she's just really tired." Emma said attempting to sound convincing.

"Pretty sure she's just drunk, that's her fourth drink."

"Ok fine," Emma huffed, slapping a five-dollar bill into Lacey's hand.

"Thank you!" emphasized Lacey, tucking the money in with the rest of her tip money. "So who should we bet on next!"

Emma let Lacey drag her off to scout for a new group of club goers to spy on while she wondered why she had never seen Regina at the club before. But then she guessed if she had been there, Emma would have had no reason to remember her since she hadn't actually met her until Wednesday that week. About 20 minutes later, Emma was once again standing at the bar waiting for drink orders when Lacey sidled up to her.

"Emmaaaaa," she started, in that voice that Emma knew meant she was going to ask Emma to do something for her that Emma probably would not want to do.

"Can you pretty please go deal with table 7? Pretty pretty please with sugar on top? I'll go deliver your next 3 drink orders."

"uuuh," responded Emma stalling as she glanced over at table 7. The booth was empty now except for Regina may have actually fallen asleep judging by the way her head was slumped in her arms on the table. "What exactly do you need me to do to deal with table 7?" she asked.

"Well the couple left a while ago but they left her there. They paid for everything, and I really don't think she is going to be ordering anything else tonight. We need to clear the booth out so another incoming group can sit there who might actually order something."

"Fine I'll deal with it," Emma sighed, knowing that Lacey hated confrontation, and while Emma wasn't worried about there being a problem, the last time Lacey had tried to clear out a booth it had ended in her dodging a drunk mans punch.

Emma slowly approached the table, and carefully put her hand on Regina's bare shoulder.

"Regina," Emma said loudly, gently shaking the other woman in an attempt to wake her up. She did not get a response at first, but after she repeated the name, Regina slowly turned her head in her arms just enough so that she could open her eyes and peer up at Emma.

"What on earth are you wearing Emma Swan?" she slurred squinting at the blonde. Emma snorted, looking down at herself. She was wearing the Rabbit Hole's waitress uniform, which consisted of a tight white button up shirt and a short red skirt that showed off a good amount of her toned legs.

"This is called a uniform," she deadpanned.

"If that's your uniform, how come you weren't wearing it last time?"

Emma laughed even harder at that. If it were anyone else wasting her time with this line of questioning, Emma probably would have gotten extremely annoyed extremely fast, but for some reason coming from Regina she found it hilarious. Maybe it was because she looked too adorable in her groggy half asleep state for Emma to be annoyed at her.

"This is my waitress uniform Regina, not what I wear to work at the precinct," she answered patiently. "I'm surprised you remember me in your current… condition."

"It's cuz you have a nice smile," Regina sighed.

"Oooook," replied Emma deciding it was time for this conversation to be over before Regina said anything too embracing. "Do you know where your friends went Regina?" she asked. Regina finally lifted her head out of her arms looking around confused. Then she seemed to remember.

"I think they said they were going to a movie, but I didn't want to go."

"Alright, well I think you are done drinking for the night. I am going to get you a cab to get you home." Emma told her. "On second thought, I think you're too drunk to even take a cab alone. Wait here for a second." Regina just nodded at her, clearly still extremely out of it. Emma dashed back across the club to where Lacey was standing talking to another waitress.

"Hey Lacey, can you cover for me for like half an hour?"

"Why?" asked Lacey suspiciously, "and why is the Harvard chick still here?"

"Yeah, about that. I actually know her, sort of. I mean I've only met her once, but I just." Emma paused, anxiously running her fingers through her long blond hair. She wasn't exactly sure why she felt so protective of the brunette law student, but she knew she had to make sure the woman got home safely. "I just want to make sure she's safe." Emma finally finished; then as further explanation, "She is so far gone, I just don't trust her going alone, even in a cab."

"Alright, I'll cover for you. But be quick," Lacey insisted.

Emma walked back over to Regina, grabbing her arm, and unceremoniously hoisting her out of her seat in the booth.

"Alright, time to go," she said as she half dragged, half carried Regina across the club and out the door.


	4. Mystery Saviour

**A/N: **So I know some of you wanted to see more of the fun drunk Regina had, I decided to skip to the next morning with this chapter. Never fear though, you will still hear about her entertaining shenanigans next chapter when she gets to hear all about it from Emma (muahaha). Also this chapter introduces another subplot/layer to the plot. I guess I should also explain that this story is not really planned to be about the actual case Regina is working on, that is more of a side plot I guess that instigates Emma and Regina meeting. There will still be plot points relating to it all though. anyways this chapter is really long, but it was important to include early on in the story, so I hope you enjoy it :)

* * *

When Regina woke Saturday morning she had a pounding headache. She slowly sat up, looking groggily around her room, trying to remember what had happened the night before. She remembered her best friend Katherine and Katherine's boyfriend Frederick showing up at her door around 10:00 pm insisting that she get out of the house for once. She had been complaining to Katherine during her Friday lunch break about how the whole Killing Jones case had doubled her work load and how stressed out she was about the rigor which would probably continue for the rest of her internship. Katherine decided it would be best for her to de-stress, and what better way to do that after a long week than go out clubbing. The only problem was, while Katherine had always liked partying, Regina did not. She was a homebody, and often had too much work to do anyways. Unfortunately, she had somehow allowed Katherine to convince her this time, and had ended up at the Rabbit Hole. What ever had happened once the three had gotten to the Rabbit Hole however was completely lost on her.

She then noticed a glass of water and two aspirin set out on her nightstand. Assuming Katherine had left them for her, Regina took the pills gratefully, and slowly worked on getting out of bed. It was nearly noon by the time she had gotten out of the shower and made herself presentable for the day. She made her way downstairs to her kitchen to find some food, grabbing her purse from the hall table on the way. She fished out her cell phone to check for any new messages. The red notification light was blinking, four missed calls from Katherine. Regina's brow furrowed. They had just spent an entire evening together, why would Katherine be so desperate to get a hold of her this morning. Did something happen between her and Frederick? Noticing that there was a voice mail for each of the four missed calls, Regina dialed in to listen to them. The first message sounded normal enough:

"Hey Regina it's Katherine. Sorry we ditched you. We just got out of the movie though; it was really great you should have come! Anyways call me back when you get a chance."

The next message was a bit more troubling to Regina:

"Hey Regina, it's about 3 am. I'm just calling to check in and make sure you got home safely from the club. I'm assuming you did since you never called us to come get you after the movie, but just call back to let me know."

Regina was slightly confused. She highly doubted she would have stayed up past 3 am, but if she hadn't gone home with Katherine, then how had she gotten home? It was possible that she had taken a cab, but that did not explain who left her the water and aspirin. She was fairly certain someone else must have brought her home because if she couldn't remember what had happened then she had definitely been too drunk to function. She decided to move on to the next message:

"Hey, it's Katherine again, I'm just going to assume that you got home and have been asleep, because it's like 8am and you're still not answering your phone. Call me back as soon as you're up."

Then the next message she noticed was from only about half an hour ago when she would have been in the shower.

"Hey Regina, I know you had a crazy night last night, but its like 11:30 now so you should really be awake, and I'm starting to get seriously worried. We shouldn't have left you by yourself at the club. I'm sorry, we were drunk and not thinking and at the time you seemed fine with it. I'm getting pretty worried though, so if I don't hear from you in the next 20 minutes, I am coming over to your house to make sure you're there and not, I don't know, lying in a ditch somewhere."

Just as Regina finished listening to the last voice mail, her doorbell rang. Setting down the coffee that she had been sipping as she listened to Katherine's ever more frantic messages, Regina set off down the hall, pretty certain of who would be at the door.

"Katherine!" she greeted as she opened the door, for it was indeed Katherine standing there white faced and worried.

"Oh thank God," Katherine gasped," you are here and alive. Holy shit Regina, you have some explaining to do. Don't you know how to answer your phone?"

"I have explaining to do?" Regina exclaimed, "I think you have some explaining to do. You left me at the club, completely drunk off my ass, by myself? What the hell were you thinking?"

"I know I know I'm soooo sorry. You're the one who refused to come with us to the movie, and we were drunk and really wanted to go. Perfect judgment wasn't exactly happening. But you're ok right? I mean you got home, you didn't die."

"Yeah I'm fine" Regina sighed, "I honestly don't remember a single thing about last night though, and I have no idea how I got home. Are you sure you didn't come and get me?"

"Positive," Katherine insisted, " we were drunk, but not that drunk. I remember everything we did last night, and we definitely didn't see you again after we left for the movie. I'm sure you just took a cab or something."

"Yeah maybe" Regina mused, not sounding completely convinced. "The thing is, I really don't think I would have been capable of even walking by myself at that point. Plus when I woke up this morning, someone had left water and two aspirin on my nightstand. Unless I was somehow being a really forward thinking drunk, someone else was here with me when I came home last night."

"Oh my God. Do you think you had a one night stand?" Katherine asked aghast.

"That thought did cross my mind, but honestly I don't think so. I was still wearing all my cloths from last night when I woke up this morning. Plus my sheets still smell completely normal and like me. I can always tell a change in scent if someone else has been sleeping in my bed."

"Alright, well if you are sure, and you are ok then I guess we'll just call whoever it was your mystery savior," replied Katherine smiling. She pulled Regina into a hug, "I'm so glad you're ok. I will never force you to go clubbing with us again. And if you want to go out with us, I promise we won't ditch you next time."

"It's fine," muttered Regina, beginning to feel awkward and uncomfortable with the sudden physical contact. She generally avoided touching people as much as possible, and while she loved Katherine, she hated hugs.

"Well I have some errands to run so I can't stay and chat," quipped Katherine, picking up on Regina's stiffness and effectively ending the hug. "Have a good rest of your weekend, and don't let work get you down too much this week!"

"I'll try," Regina chuckled, "I can't promise anything though." She did know one thing for certain: she was going to forever be wondering who her mystery savior had been.

Ten minutes later Regina was in the car on her way to the Boys and Girls Club. She had started volunteering there as a tutor during the homework help hours of the previous school year, but she found she loved working with the kids so much that when summer vacation started, she volunteered to help run their summer activities camp. The camp was technically 5 days a week, but they kept a minimum staff available on Saturdays as well for the kids who had nowhere to go on the weekends. She had had to cut back her volunteer hours there from 4 days a week to just Saturdays and Tuesdays when she started working for Gold, but it was still extremely important to her to stay involved. Over the course of the last school year she had become pretty attached to a couple of the kids, and she felt responsible to be a consistent adult presence in their lives as she knew that many of them lacked good adult role models at home.

When she entered the small classroom, there were only about ten kids in attendance, and the morning volunteers were getting ready to sign out. One of the morning volunteers, a tall dark woman whom she recognized but couldn't name, approached her with the current role sheet.

"It's been a bit of a slow day," she said, "All these kids were scheduled for a full day so they should all be signing around 5. We've mostly just been doing arts and crafts, which seems to be keeping them occupied. They're working on making popsicle stick dream catchers right now, but I suspect they'll be wrapping that up in the next half hour so you can do what ever you feel like with them after that."

"Sounds great, thanks," Regina replied, smiling as she took the role sheet from the other woman. She noticed her afternoon supervising partner enter the classroom as well, and politely excused herself to fill her in. They were standing discussing what other activities they should plan when felt a large weight collide with her lower torso. She looked down as she tried to keep her balance to find a young dark haired boy hugging her.

"Hey Henry!" she exclaimed, affectionately ruffling his hair.

"I missed you Regina," he replied, speaking into her stomach as he was still hugging her tightly. Henry was 7 years old and was a regular attendee of the camps. She had met Henry her first day volunteering and had become extremely fond of the boy. He was definitely her favorite of all the kids she had worked with. He was sweet, kind, and extremely smart. When she had tutored during the school year, he had always asked her specifically for help on homework, although she realized fairly quickly that he never actually needed help with the work, he just wanted an excuse to have someone to talk to. While she loved him and thought he was a great kid, she had noticed he didn't seem to quite fit in with the other kids his age, and preferred to sit by himself reading instead of playing games with the other kids in his class.

When he finally pulled out of the hug, Regina crouched down to speak to him on his level.

"I've missed you too Henry," she said, giving him a once over to assess his well being. He had not come to camp at all the previous week she had heard, which was very abnormal for him, and it made her worry. "Why didn't you come to camp last week?" she inquired carefully.

"They wouldn't let me," he answered with an angry pout. This answer confused Regina a bit. She had thought maybe they were out of town or something. She knew that Henry was a foster child and had been living with his current foster family for a little over a year. His foster parents both worked and did not have any children of their own, so she assumed that he would have go to camp so they could go to work and not have to pay for expensive baby sitters or day care.

"Did your parents have vacation time? I bet it was nice to be able to stay home from camp for a few days to spend time with them."

Regina knew Henry wasn't the biggest fan of his foster parents, but she had hoped with time he would become more comfortable with his living situation and would eventually open up to having them as parents.

"No it wasn't! I hate them, they're evil!" he shouted stomping his foot. Regina sighed, she loved Henry, but hated when he was in one of his moods.

"Henry, I'm sure they aren't evil," she said calmly, "Do you know why they didn't let you go to camp last week?"

"They ARE evil!," he complained, "and they didn't let me go because I was grounded. And they still had to go to work so I didn't get to spend time with them even if I had wanted to."

"You know what I think you need?" Regina asked, deciding it was time to change the subject before Henry had a real temper tantrum.

"What?" Henry responded, looking at her suspiciously.

"You need a great big cheer you up hug, come here," she said pulling him back into her arms. After a couple minutes she pulled back, holding him at arms length.

"Feel better?" she asked.

"Yeah, thanks Regina!" he exclaimed, the excited happy glint back in his eyes, and before she could respond he was running off back across the room to his seat at the arts and crafts table. She watched him for a moment, thinking about the new information he had just given her. She wasn't sure why, but over the past few months she was getting exceedingly more worried about him, and she had this feeling in her gut that she couldn't shake, like she knew something was wrong but she didn't know what. She went about the rest of the day with her partner organizing activities and visiting with the other children, but she still couldn't get Henry out of the back of her mind. She kept turning over everything she knew about him in her mind, trying to figure out where this bad feeling was coming from. It wasn't until his foster mother came to sign him out at 5 pm that she suddenly realized what it was. She didn't trust Henry's foster parents. She had absolutely no foundation for this feeling of distrust, but she couldn't help think of her observations of Henry over the past few months. As Henry walked out of the classroom trudging along behind his foster mother, Regina suddenly had a realization. If both Henry's foster parents had been at work last week, but he had been grounded and not allowed to come to camp, then who had been supervising him at home? He was only seven years old, which was definitely not old enough to be left home alone for eight hours a day. Without second thought, she snatched up one of the example dream catchers from the craft table and hurried after Henry.

"Henry!" she called out across the parking lot. Both Henry and his foster mother turned around to look at her. She waved and gave Henry's foster mother a tight smile as she quickly made her way over to them.

"Henry forgot his dream catcher, and I was hoping to talk to him about something for a moment as well," she said smoothly to the foster mother.

"Fine," huffed the other woman, obviously in a hurry, "You can be in charge of getting him into his car seat then." She opened the driver door of her black SUV, seated herself in the car, and slammed the door shut in apparent frustration.

"uuhhh ok," Regina muttered, side glancing at the woman now grimacing angrily out of the car window.

"I didn't forget my dream catcher," Henry remarked, looking at her curiously. Regina just laughed; of course Henry was smart enough to realize what she was up to.

"I know, I just needed an excuse to talk to you for a minute. Can I ask you something?"

"Yea, but make it quick, she's gonna be mad if I make her late for dinner."

"Alright, I just was wondering, who was watching you when you were home last week? Because you're not really old enough to be home alone for so long."

"No one. I can be home alone, I'm good," Henry answered indignantly.

"So you were home alone? They just trust you aren't going to get hurt or make a mess around the house?"

"Well yea they knew I couldn't make a mess because I was locked in my room."

"You were locked in your room," Regina hissed, trying not to let her anger show, "all day long?"

"Umm yea, till they get home from work. It's ok though I have books to read so it's not like I was bored," Henry replied shrugging.

"But what if you had to go to the bathroom? Or got hungry? Did you get lunch?" Regina asked concerned.

"The first time it was tough, but I figured if the dog can stay inside all day without peeing I can too. And I never get lunch anyways except for at camp. They don't ever give me lunch money for school so I just never eat lunch."

"What?" Regina gasped, "They don't feed you?"

"Well I get dinner," Henry stated, sounding a little uncomfortable with the conversation.

"umm ok. Henry, maybe you shouldn't tell your foster mom we had this conversation ok?" Regina told him trying to stay calm.

"Yeah ok," he said sounding bored.

"Alright, well I guess I have to get you in your car seat then come on."

Regina was still fuming as she drove home. She had known something was off for months, but she had never gone to the social worker because she had no evidence and they definitely wouldn't take her seriously just because she "had a bad feeling", but now with the new information from Henry, she thought she could get the foster parents investigated for child neglect at least. She had thought about going to the social worker before when she noticed Henry seeming to get more and more unhappy, but she had always wondered if she was overreacting. Now though she knew she had real concerns. She resolved to make the phone call as soon as she got home.


	5. Can't Focus

**A/N: **Sorry I skipped a week on updates. I had finals last week and it was my 21st birthday, so I was slightly incapacitated ;) I've been pretty busy this week as well because it's training week at my internship,so this chapter is a bit short and kind of just a set up for next chapter, but I wanted to get something posted. Hope you enjoy it, and next chapter will have more fun drunken Regina stories, but this time as told by Emma muahaha.

* * *

By Thursday morning, Regina was exhausted and running extremely late. She had been running herself into the ground trying to keep up with all of her internship work and keep up the unending game of phone tag she seemed to be caught up in with child protective services. She had been successful in talking to someone on Monday when she first called to enquire about launching an investigation, but since said investigation had begun, she was being completely blocked out of the process. In some ways she understood that she shouldn't have expected to be kept informed, but she couldn't help wanting to know what was happening. She felt responsible for Henry's future and was afraid they still weren't taking her completely seriously. She also feared if they did find the foster parents negligent, that he would just be sent off somewhere else where she would still have no way to know if he was actually safe.

So she found herself running on only two hours of sleep and already ten minutes late to her morning meeting with Gold. As she got out of her car in the parking lot of the law firm, she realized she had a voicemail, and quickly called in to listen to it as she made her way into the office. It was Gold, as she probably should have expected seeing how late she was, but he didn't seem to be reprimanding her. As it turned out, he was informing her to meet him at the police station instead. Apparently there was some new evidence discovered in their case that he had requested access to so they could stay informed and build a strong case. Regina was slightly annoyed that she had driven all the way to the law firm when the precinct was much closer to her home, however she was relieved that she at least had a more valid excuse now for being late.

When she arrived at the precinct, she went straight to the chiefs office to find the one person she could think of who would probably be able to point her in the right direction to find Gold. To her relief Chief Nolan appeared to be out of the office leaving the young assistant alone sitting dutifully at her desk.

"Miss Swan," Regina asserted, simultaneously knocking on the half open door to the office.

"Oh hey! Nice to finally see you back here," Emma exclaimed, standing to walk around her desk and greet the brunette.

"I hope you are well," Regina replied formally, although she couldn't help but give the blonde a small smile.

"About as well as I'll ever be," Emma replied. Regina gave her a curious look, but decided not to investigate Emma's cryptic response. Instead she asked,

"I'm looking for Mr. Gold. I am supposed to be meeting him here this morning but I'm running a bit late and have no idea where to find him."

"Oh yeah, he's in the bullpen looking through evidence. They won't let him take any of it out of the station, but he's allowed to stay here to take notes on it as long as he likes. I'm sure it will be a fun day for you," Emma informed, and then continued with a smirk, "and by the way, you still owe me lunch."

"Oh I do, do I?" Regina inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes you do. You agreed to have lunch with me sometime so I can have a proper conversation with another woman my age, and I refuse to count you drunkenly hitting on me at the Rabbit Hole as a proper conversation."

"What?" Regina gasped.

"Oh come on, you know last Friday when you were there with your friends?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about, and I assure you Katherine would have mentioned if you were with us on our night out."

"Was Katherine that tall blond chick? Because she and her boyfriend were super irresponsible to leave you alone there in that state. Anyways, I wasn't there with you and your friends, I was there waitressing," Emma explained.

"You were waitressing," Regina repeated in confusion.

"Wow, you really don't remember anything about that night do you?"

"Well I remember arriving at the Rabbit Hole with Katherine and Frederick because Katherine said I needed to get out more and blow off some steam. Unfortunately everything that may have occurred afterwards is rather blank. Would you care to fill me in?"

Emma just smirked in reply, gesturing Regina out of the office indicating she should go find Gold. Just before she stepped across the threshold, the blonde leaned in and said quietly, "I will explain everything about our adventures, but only over lunch. I'll be in my office waiting for you whenever you get your break." With that she turned and returned to her desk a backwards glance, leaving Regina standing out in the hall extremely confused and nervous. She had no idea what may or may not have happened Friday night, but she was rather afraid to find out. For Emma's part, she was thoroughly enjoying keeping the brunette on pins and needles. Even though nothing had really happened between them, it was fun to mess with the ever so serious law student, and she was going to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Jones it appeared still did not have a solid alibi, but there was now evidence suggesting a possible second suspect. This was good news for Gold and Regina, as it gave them a case to argue reasonable doubt, which was more than they had before. Yet Regina could not focus. Her mind kept drifting all over the place, from worrying about what would happen to Henry to worrying how much embracement she may or may not have caused herself on Friday to wondering why she seemed to feel slightly giddy after every encounter with Emma Swan. That being said, she was extremely relieved when Gold finally pronounced that they should take a lunch break and reconvene in an hour. It wasn't until she was halfway back to meet Emma that she began to feel nervousness gripping her gut. She told herself it was just because she afraid to learn about her drunken night, but deep down she felt there was another reason.


	6. Lunch

**A/N: **Sooo I'm updating late again because I'm a huge procrastinator, and writing a lot of dialog is really hard for me so I was putting off working on this chapter haha. Anyways I hope you all enjoy it, and from here out hopefully my updates will be more consistent. I've been actually working on this a little out of order, so the next couple chapters are already pretty much done :)

* * *

Regina and Emma were sitting at a small table off in the corner of the diner located directly across the street from the precinct. While Emma sat slouched back in her chair leisurely thumbing through her menu, Regina sat ramrod straight on the edge of her chair, her hands folded carefully in front of her on top of her closed menu.

"Are you just going to sit there staring at me, or are you actually going to order something?" Emma asked, glancing up from her menu.

"I'm waiting for you to come through with your end of the deal," Regina replied, "I am here having lunch with you am I not? You now owe me an explanation."

"Right…" said Emma folding up her menu and setting it down on the table in front of her. "I thought we could at least order our food first before I start but if you really want to know this minute, I at least know what I'm ordering, so I guess I can tell you whatever you want to know."

"Just tell me what happened at the Rabbit Hole Friday night please," Regina said tersely. Emma gave her a strange look, rather taken aback by her sudden change in mood, and Regina realized she was letting her nerves get the best of her. She took a deep breath in an attempt to relax, trying to convince herself that the worst thing that could have happened was her slightly embracing herself, which would not be the end of the world, however unpleasant it may be.

"Alright, I can do that," Emma reassured, beginning to feel a little guilty about all her teasing earlier in the day, as Regina seemed much more worried about the whole thing now than was really warranted. "And just to let you know, nothing bad happened, so you can relax."

"Are you sure?" asked Regina skeptically.

"Yes, I promise nothing bad happened. I mean you might have said some things which could be possibly embracing, but then again maybe not, I mean I don't really know you that well, so I don't know what would embarrass you or not" Emma smiled, realizing she was rambling.

"Anyways," she continued, "as I said, I work at the Rabbit Hole for night shift on the weekends, so I had already been working for a couple hours before you got there. I actually only noticed you came in because my friend Lacey was your waitress and she wanted to make a light weight bet on your group."

"A what bet?" Regina interrupted curiously.

"Oh right, a lightweight bet, it's just a stupid game Lacey and I came up with to make our waitressing more interesting. Basically we bet cash on who we think will be the lightweight out of a group of customers. Anyways she thought you and your friends would be a fun group to bet on, so she pointed your table out to me, and we made our bet, which I lost by the way thanks to you. Turns out you can't actually hold your alcohol." Emma faux glared at Regina across the table, finally getting the response she wanted when Regina let out a reluctant chuckle.

"Well, I don't really know what you were expecting as I rarely ever drink."

"But I didn't know that now did I?" Emma retorted.

"Well now you do," Regina smiled, "No go on what happened when Katherine, Frederick, and I got to the club."

"Well honestly I don't really know much of what you guys were doing other than that you all pretty much just sat at your booth. I was still working so I couldn't just watch you the entire time, not that I would have anyways," Emma backtracked, trying to ignore the slight blush forming on her cheeks, "Anyways, I do know that you only got through about four drinks before you were pretty much asleep with your head on the table, and your 'friends' had disappeared." She put the word friends in air quotes, making it clear to Regina that she was not a fan of Katherine and Frederick.

"And by the way," she continued, "I fully intend to give those said friends of yours a talking to because unless there was some sort of emergency, they should in no situation be leaving a very drunk girl all alone in a club. I honestly can't believe they were that irresponsible. I don't even want to think about what could have happened if I hadn't been there, because by the time they had left you, you could barely even stand up."

"Yes, I agree with you about that," Regina mused, "and I actually already had that conversation with Katherine, so there is no need for you to, as you say, give her a talking to."

Although Regina would never show it, she was secretly touched that this woman sitting across from her, who was in all reasonable judgment still a complete stranger, would care enough to stand up for her and protect her.

"Good," said Emma still giving her a serious look, but then suddenly Emma's tone flipped like a light switch and she said "Moving on, this is the part of the story that gets entertaining," She wiggled her eyebrows at Regina suggestively, a goofy grin once again lighting up her features, and Regina couldn't help but laugh at her.

"Oh great," she chuckled, "Do I really want to hear this?"

"Yes you do, because it involves me!" Emma exclaimed with a triumphant smile. Regina just continued to laugh in response, nodding slightly to Emma to indicate for her to continue. Unfortunately, right at that moment, the diner's waitress decided to finally make an appearance to take their lunch order.

"What can I get for you to lovely ladies?" she asked.

"I'll have the bacon cheese burger with a side of fries," Emma ordered confidently while Regina scrambled to actually look at the menu.

"And for you miss?" the waitress asked, smiling at Regina.

"Uhhh," she said stalling for time.

"See, this is why I told you to decide what you were ordering first," Emma pointed out, then turning to the waitress she said, "She'll have the same thing as me." Regina's head shot up from where it was bend over the menu.

"No, I absolutely won't. I, unlike you, do not wish to have a heart attack." Emma rolled her eyes at this before replying,

"Yes Regina, you will, because I'm starving, and we don't have time to sit here while you to decide what to order anyways. Incase you've forgotten, we both have jobs to get back to at some point."

"Fine," Regina huffed, "but I want a _plain_ hamburger, and a side salad, no fires."

"Anyways, what was I saying?" the blonde continued once the waitress had left them.

"You were getting to the interesting part of the story where I'm alone, inebriated, in the club, and you presumably come to rescue me."

"Yes yes, so Lacey noticed that your friends had ditched and told me I needed to go over and kick you out since you weren't ordering anything anymore and we needed your booth to seat a new incoming group. So I went over and woke you up and offered to get a cab to take you home. It was pretty funny actually; I think you were trying to flirt with me. You kept asking about my clothes, and in your inebriated state you were extremely confused about why I was there, and couldn't quite grasp my explanation that I worked there," Emma snickered, "and then there was my favorite, when you told me I have a pretty smile," she then gave Regina her best sparkly grin.

"Oh Lord," Regina replied, bringing her hand up to hide her face for a minute, "I'm sorry Emma, I hope I didn't make you too uncomfortable," she continued bringing her hand down again so she could look at Emma.

"Don't worry about it," Emma chortled, "Anyways I decided I should accompany you home since you couldn't really stand or walk straight on your own, so I ended up pretty much carrying you to the cab. You mostly just fell asleep on me on the way to your house. Once we got there, and I had woken you up again, you were got really enamored by my clothes again. I had such a hard time keeping a straight face and successfully getting you up the stairs because you kept getting distracted stroking my skirt because you thought it was soft, and then you were wanting to play with the buttons on my shirt. It was actually really hilarious, even though it made getting you to walk anywhere extremely frustrating."

Regina could feel her cheeks flaming at as Emma kept dissolving into laughter all during her explanation. She let out a long sigh,

"Well, I guess if that's the worst that happened I should be grateful," she finally said.

"Seriously though, you have nothing to worry about. It's not like anyone but me saw you anyways, and I promise you I didn't mind taking care of you. After we finally got upstairs I dumped you on your bed, and by the time I got back to your room with water and aspirin you were already asleep again so I just left."

"Thank you Emma, really," Regina said quietly, with sincerity.

Once their meals had arrived, Regina decided to change the topic of conversation.

"So, if you don't mind me asking, why do you work at the Rabbit Hole on the weekends anyways?"

"I get asked that a lot actually," Emma commented, "People assume since I work a full time job at the precinct that I make plenty of money to meet my needs. Honestly they would be right if all I had to worry about was paying for rent, utilities, and food, but I'm still trying to put myself through college, which is damn expensive."

"Oh your still in school?" Regina inquired, surprised.

"Yeah, I'm taking night classes, studying criminal justice. Someday, I want to actually be a police officer, not just work for them,"

"That sounds like a lot of work, holding two jobs and going to school," Regina mused.

"It is exhausting, but it will be worth it. I need this degree because I promised myself when I got rid of Neal that I would get my life together." Regina gave her a questioning look, and Emma realized she had completely forgotten that Regina didn't know anything about what she was saying.

"I guess I should explain," she continued, "Neal is my ex-boyfriend. I was in the foster system, and he was a terrible influence, and it was just overall a bad situation, and I decided I wanted more for myself."

"I see," said Regina, absent-mindedly reaching for a fry off Emma's plate as she listened intently.

"Hey! Get your own fries!" Emma reprimanded, lightly slapping at Regina's hand. "Emma doesn't' share food!" she exclaimed with a pout.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Regina laughed awkwardly, inwardly chastising herself. She wondered how she had all of a sudden become so comfortable with this Emma Swan that she had allowed herself to forget her manners. They finished their lunch making small talk about their work and Regina's case, and then made their way back to the precinct.

"Thank you for inviting me to lunch Emma," said Regina as they approached the glass doors of the police station. "It was really nice getting to know you."

"You're welcome, and thank you for agreeing to accompany me. As I told you at our first meeting, I don't have many women my age here to talk to, so this was really nice," Emma smiled back, and Regina was again hit by the warmth of it.

"You know," she said, "What I said was completely true, even if I was drunk."

"I don't follow," replied Emma, looking at her curiously.

"About your smile." Regina stated, and with that she turned and entered the precinct, leaving Emma standing outside with the biggest grin plastered across her face.


	7. Henry

**A/N: **So we're taking a bit of a detour from the swan queen action to check in on Henry. Sorry the two leading ladies aren't in this chapter, but I think it is still important for the story. Also it's a bit of a short chapter so I'm going to do a double update tonight :)

* * *

It had been two weeks since Allison Thompson had received the call about Henry, and she had now concluded her investigation and determined what in her opinion was the best course of action for Henry. All that was left for her to do was to meet with the boy to inform him of her decision and explain to him what he could expect for the future. She stood quietly leaning against the passenger side door of her car, waiting outside his current foster parent's home for him to come out. She knew this would be a difficult day for him, but she hoped she could make it go as smooth as possible. Within ten minutes he came trudging out the front door, clutching the handle of a small suitcase behind him which no doubt held all of his worldly possessions. As he cautiously approached her, she crouched down to his level and called out to him, attempting a welcoming smile.

"Hey Henry! Do you remember me?" she asked. She had only met the boy once before, about a week ago, when she had interviewed him for the investigation. He looked at her solemnly and nodded.

"Well if you don't mind, I can help you load your suit case into the trunk of the car, and then we'll be on our way. I can explain where we're going once you get in. How about that?" she asked, keeping a friendly reassuring tone of voice. The boy just nodded again, still staring at her with a slight pout clouding his features. Once he was safely loaded in the back seat, with his suitcase secured in the trunk, Allison hoped into the driver's seat and began pulled out onto the quiet neighborhood street.

"So Henry, are you glad to be leaving this place?" she asked, glancing back at him in her rearview mirror. Henry merely shrugged, still apparently refusing to speak to her. She sighed and tried to come up with a way to get him to be more responsive.

"Alright … Well I guess I'll just explain to you what is going to happen from here out," she continued. "Usually in this situation, we would transfer you to a new foster family, as I'm sure has been your experience in the past when moving around. Unfortunately, at this time there are no available families to take you in, so for now we are moving you to the Steinway Group Home. It will likely be temporary, until a new family becomes available, but for now you will be staying there with about ten other boys around your age."

When Henry still did not respond, she glanced back at him pointedly.

"Do you have any questions about anything that is happening?" she inquired, trying to give him as much control over the conversation as she could.

"Yes. I do have a question," he finally answered, looking up at her for the first time.

"Alright, what is your question?"

"Why do I have to go to the group home? I don't want to live there."

"Well, you will just be there temporarily we hope, but right now there aren't any available foster families, so that is the only option for you at the moment," she replied patiently, reiterating what she had already explained clearly.

"But what about Regina?" Henry asked, "Why can't I stay with her? It's her fault I had to leave the Dixon's right? I mean she's the only person I ever told about being locked in my room."

"Henry, are you upset that Regina reported them?" Allison asked cautiously.

"I don't know," Henry answered truthfully, arms crossed over his chest defensively, as he glared the back of the driver's seat in front of him.

"Henry," Allison addressed him with a sigh, "She did what was best for you because she cares about you, but she does not owe you anything. Can you understand that? You weren't safe with the Dixons. I know the group home isn't your preferred option, but at least you will be safe there and will have all your needs met."

"Yeah, but I won't have a mother anymore," Henry whispered, so quietly that she almost didn't hear him. In that moment, her heart ached for the little boy sulking in the back seat. She realized this child would rather put up with the abuse and neglect and be able to pretend he had a mother who cared about him, than live in a healthy environment such as the group home, but not have the comfort of that illusion. She was pulled from her musing when Henry spoke up again.

"You said before, that Regina did this because she cares about me. If she really cares about me, why wouldn't she want me to stay with her?" he asked, looking as though he were close to tears.

"It wouldn't be forever," he continued quickly when Allison failed to answer right away, "just temporary until a new foster family can take me. Then at least I wouldn't have to go to the group home. Please?"

"Henry, I don't know whether Regina would or would not want you to stay with her, and I have no doubt that she cares about you, but you have to understand, Regina is still very young. She is still in school, I don't think she is ready to be a mother, or that she wants that responsibility yet. She is still in school, just like you," she explained, trying to find a way for him to understand without making him feel rejected.

"Nuh uh, she's not like me," he shot back petulantly, "she is an adult, and I'm just a kid. I promise I wouldn't be any trouble. Can I just ask her please? How do you know she doesn't want me if you didn't even ask her?" He was now staring at Allison with such fierce determination in his face that she finally relented.

"Alright Henry, I will ask her. But I can't make any promises, so don't get your hopes up. Remember, that if she says no, it isn't because she doesn't care about you ok? She has a life too, you can't expect her to drop everything for you, but I will find out what she thinks."

"Thank you!" Henry exclaimed, now gleaming as if he had just won a great battle.

"You're still going to have to stay at the group home today though ok?" she asked.

"Yeah yeah ok," he grumbled, but he was smiling again as they pulled into the parking lot of Steinway, and Allison began to worry she had given him to much false hope.


	8. Neal Returns

**A/N: **Here is the second chapter of tonights update. Things are really starting to get interesting, and a bit more character background is revealed. I know it seems like theres now like 3 simultaneous story lines, but hopefully it doesn't get to crazy and confusing. We will get back around the the Henry situation soon as well. This is also a pretty long chapter, but I hope you enjoy it.

**Trigger Warning:** Drug/Alcohol abuse, reference to physical abuse.

* * *

At the same time Henry was being delivered to his new home, Emma was just getting out of the shower after a long day at the precinct. It was almost 6:00 pm when there was a pounding on her front door. As she crossed through her bedroom and out into the hall, she wondered who could possibly be at her door on an evening in the middle of the week. Then the yelling started as she quietly made her way through the apartment to the front door.

"Emmmaaaaaaaa, I know you're in there!... Emma open up, I need some aspirin. EMMAAAAAA my head is killing me, can you even imagine what I'm going through. Let me in and get me some pills!"

Emma recognized the voice as soon as it started, and she immediately turned and ran back to her bedroom, grabbing her backpack and phone, and shutting herself in her closet. She didn't know how far gone Neal was at this point, but she didn't doubt that he was strong enough to break down her front door if he really wanted to and still had enough coordination. She had seen Neal like this many times before. It was exactly for this reason that she kicked him out all those years ago. The only problem was, this time it would be worse. When she had kicked Neal out, he was still only 19 and she was pretty much as strong as he was. While they still got injured when they fought, at least it was a fair match. Now however that wasn't the case. Neal was now 25 years old and had been a major dealer in the heroine rings for the past 4 years. He was now larger, stronger, and more buff than he had ever been while still living in the apartment with Emma. On top of that he now had unlimited access to illegal weapons, and Emma had no doubt that he had at least one gun on him at all times.

Emma tried to think back to the last time she had spoken to Neal. It had been at least two years ago, and the only reason she agreed to the meeting was because he promised to show up sober and without a weapon. Needless to say he did not keep his end of the deal, however, because they had agreed to meet in a public place it was easier for her to escape him when she realized he was high as a kite. This time however she had nowhere to go. All she could do was sit in her closet and wait for him to leave. That is if he ever would leave without breaking the door down and storming the apartment first.

_I gotta get out of here_ Emma thought to herself, as the pounding and yelling got louder and more frantic. She got up, crossing her bedroom to look out her window. The street was dark, but it didn't look like Neal had any of his guys waiting on the backside of the apartment buildings. If he had brought anyone along, it looked like they were all out front. _This is good_ she thought, _if I can get out the window and somehow get down to the ground, I could escape without him seeing me. _She honestly could care less if he broke into her apartment and stole all her stuff, as long as she wasn't there when it happened. If she could get out, she could ensure her safety, and in that moment that was all she cared about.

_If I do manage to climb out though, where the hell would I go? Shit, I need a plan. I could sleep in my car… but my car is parked out front and he would for sure see me. Damn can't use the car. If I leave now I might be able to get to the library before it closes and hide in one of the study rooms. I could spend the night there and go straight to work in the morning. Crap I'm supposed to have a meeting with Chief Nolan at 8:00am and I wouldn't be able to get out of the library until it opens at 10. _

Different plans kept chasing themselves around her head, until she realized her best bet was to run to the nearest open business and call someone to pick her up. The only problem was, Emma Swan did not have anyone to call. She was an orphan, and the only person she had who was remotely close to family was Neal himself. Between spending all her time working at the precinct, the club, and in night classes, she never had time to make friends. Emma knew she was a loner, but until now she never really cared. She was fine on her own, and making friends was not top on her list of priorities. Right now, however, her lack of friends could mean life or death. The first person she thought to call was Chief Nolan, because they had always had a sort of father/daughter mentoring dynamic, and she was sure he wouldn't think twice to lend a hand if she needed it. The only problem was Chief Nolan was the police, and no matter how angry or afraid Neal made her, she still couldn't bring herself to turn him in. He would see it as the greatest betrayal, and as much as she hated herself for caring, she could not do that to him.

Then, suddenly she had a plan. It all became crystal clear in her mind and she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before. _This is going to work. This has to work. I just know it. She's going to answer and she's going to say yes and it's going to work. I can feel it. _And with that thought, she grabbed her phone and began to dial.

* * *

Regina was still in her office, even though it was at least an hour after she was supposed to get off. She was deeply engrossed in re reading all the files she had on the Killian Jones case. At first she didn't even notice her cell phone going off as it vibrated angrily at the bottom of her purse. When she finally heard it, she realized it was would probably send the caller to her voice mail any second, and hurried to answer it, not bothering to look at the caller ID. The first thing she heard as she pressed the phone to her ear was a loud "Shit" cursed across the phone lines.

"Hello?" she inquired curiously.

"Oh thank God you answered. I need your help, like right now. Shit is going down, and I promise I will explain as soon as you get here but you need to leave wherever you are right now."

"What? Who is this?" Regina asked blankly, completely confused, and wondering if the person on the other end might have the wrong number.

"Oh sorry I thought you had my number in your phone. This is Emma, Emma Swan. I need you to drive to the Chevron gas station on 9th and Buchannan and pick me up. Remember my ex Neal that I told you about last week? Well he's here, at my apartment, and I have nowhere to go, and I'm honestly scared for my life right now, so I know this is out of the blue, and I'm asking you to drop everything you are doing, but I am begging you please. Please come get me."

"I'm on my way," Regina said, hanging up the phone and immediately gathering her things into her briefcase. It wasn't until she was in her car halfway to the gas station that she realized what she was doing. As soon as Emma told her where to go she had jumped up without a second thought. As soon as she pulled up, Emma came running out of the Extra Mile shop and jumped in the passenger seat.

"Are you ok?" Regina asked, worry etched all over her face. "Where's Neal? Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine. I never let him in the apartment. He was just outside banging on the door like a maniac. I don't know what he's on right now, but this might be as bad as I've ever seen him. I had to climb out my window to get out of there without him noticing. I'm sure he'll have broken down the door by the time I get back home."

"Did you call the police?" Regina asked.

"No no no no no, you can't call the police! Neal would never forgive me if I turned him in. Plus he's so high right now, he'd probably try to pull a gun on them and get himself shot. I cannot be responsible for him getting shot. I can't. No police."

"Emma, if he's breaking into your home with a weapon, and putting your life in danger, you need to call the police!" Regina exclaimed, "Just because you escaped today doesn't mean you will in the future. He's dangerous, please let me call the police."

"Regina No!" Emma shouted, "I said no police!"

"Fine," Regina hissed, "Have it your way," and she angrily shifted her car back into gear, pulling back out into the street, weaving slightly in her agitation.

"Jesus Christ, calm down or you're gonna get us killed!" Emma warned. Regina just glared at her in return. She wasn't sure why she felt so strongly about Emma not calling the police, but the thought of Emma putting herself in danger when she didn't have to put her on edge. She kept her lips shut tight however, because she knew it was really none of her business. It was Emma's life, and she had to respect Emma's choice.

They rode in silence.

"You probably think I'm stupid." Emma finally spoke, so quietly Regina almost didn't hear her, "you know, for not calling the police." Regina sighed, pausing to choice her words carefully.

"No, I don't think you're stupid." She answered Emma just as softly, as they pulled up into the drive of her mansion. "I think you love and care about Neal, and do not want to betray him, or make him suffer. I completely understand that. Just because he has been making bad life choices and is neck deep in drug dealing and alcoholism does not change that. It does not change the history you have shared, and how important he is in your life."

"He's the only family I ever had."

"Exactly, and you would still do anything for him. I'm not saying that I agree with your decision to not call the police; I think you would be much safer, and actually Neal probably would be as well, if he were to go to jail, but I understand it. You are not stupid for choosing this."

"I just hate that still care. After all he's done. All he's put me through," Emma spit out in frustration, tears welling up in her eyes as she turned her head, pretending too look out the car window.

"Emma, look at me," Regina implored, grabbing Emma's hand and squeezing it gently. Emma turned her head, looking into those bright brown eyes. "It's ok to care. It is actually amazing that you still care." Regina said firmly, "The fact that you can still show someone like Neal love and compassion is a good thing. It is what makes you such a good person. It makes you kind and caring, and a person who can bring light to the world. It is good to feel for him. It is good that you care."

"Yeah, I know," Emma finally sighed, managing a weak smile. "It would just make my life a lot easier if I didn't."

"Yes, well life is never easy. Even if you can convince yourself that you don't care." Regina replied darkly, and in the moment, Emma could tell Regina's mind had transported her elsewhere, to some dark place in her past. She wondered what Regina was thinking; what was hiding behind those sad dark eyes.

"So where are we exactly?" Emma said, deciding it was time to lighten the mood. She hadn't really been paying attention to where Regina was driving. Regina jerked out of her reverie and looked around.

"Oh, this is my house," she stated, as though that should have been obvious.

"This is your house…" Emma repeated slowly, her jaw dropping. "Wow it looks wayyy bigger in the day light. Do you seriously live here all by yourself?"

"Well you make it sound extremely depressing when you say it like that, but yeah I live here all by myself," Regina answered, chuckling at the look on Emma's face.

"But I thought you were like a law student. How do you have money to buy a huge mansion if you're paying for law school at Harvard? There is no way Mr. Gold pays you **that** much."

"Well you are correct there" Regina quipped, "I would never have been able to afford this place had I tried to buy it with my own earnings. Fortunately this manor came all expense paid due to my lovely inheritance. I guess that was one thing my parents were good for." She muttered the last sentence darkly under her breath as she began to open the driver's side door and climb out of the car. Emma still heard it however, and again wondered what the brunette was thinking in that moment. She decided not to interrogate her about it now though.

They walked together up to the front door and silence again fell between them. Once inside, Regina lead the way into her study and silently poured them both a glass of hard apple cider. Emma accepted her offering and they both drank in silence, each absorbed in her own thoughts. By now Emma had let her thoughts drift away from Regina back to Neal, and a new fear was beginning to take hold in her mind. Neal was extremely stubborn, and she was slowly beginning to realize that since he never saw her leave the apartment, there was a very good chance he would stay waiting outside her door all night. He knew she had to go to work in the morning, and would most likely sleep sitting against the door, waiting for her to be forced to open it for him when she left in the morning. She tried her best to stay calm, but she could feel the panic rising in her chest as she imagined him still there waiting when she returned to her apartment. She knew that in this state of inebriation he could be very dangerous, but she had nowhere else to go. She couldn't afford to crash in a hotel for the night, and as lovely as it was for Regina to save her for the time being, she would have to return to her apartment eventually to sleep. She figured she could only hide out at Regina's for a few hours tops.

It wasn't until Regina actually heard Emma's breathing get haggard that she was pulled out of her own thoughts and looked at the blonde. Emma was staring straight ahead, mouth slightly open; eyes wide like a dear in the headlights.

"Emma! Are you ok?" she gasped, quickly taking a step towards Emma. "Shit" Regina cursed under her breath when Emma didn't respond. "Emma, can you hear me?" She asked loudly, shaking Emma lightly by the shoulders. "Emma, listen to me. It's all right. You're all right. Tell me what's wrong. I'm here." Emma's eyes were slowly focusing in on the brunette; the blurred images she had been fighting began to fade, as Regina's voice broke through her mess of panicked imagination.

"I can't go back. I have nowhere to go. I have no money. I could sleep in my car but what if he finds me? He could kill me. I really think he might kill me this time," her words came out between gasps for air, her eyes beginning to glaze over again as she imagined an angry violent Neal coming after her, so high he wouldn't even realize how hard he was beating her if he got close enough. She fought the images, grabbing on to Regina's arms for support, trying to ground herself.

"You can stay here Emma. You don't have to go back, not tonight. I am not going to throw you out on the street," Regina urged, trying to get through to the blonde. "I promise, you can stay here as long as you need. I am not going to put you back in harms way. In fact I won't **let** you go back there if there's a chance you would still be in danger. Do you hear me? I've got your back ok?"

The blue eyes finally focused back in on brown ones, and Emma's breathing began to even out, as she forced herself to focus on Regina's face. As soon as she felt Emma's grip on her begin to relax, Regina slowly pulled the other woman towards her, wrapping her arms around her. Regina held her there, allowing Emma's head to rest on her shoulder as she softly rubbed up and down Emma's back, trying to sooth her. They stood there for a long time, Regina softly muttering words of comfort and encouragement in Emma's ear as Emma worked to even out her breathing.

* * *

Emma and Regina were seated next to each other on Regina's couch, sipping slowly from their wine glasses. It had been a few hours since Emma's panic attack, and they had since made and eaten dinner. Emma had made herself at home, and was now reading carefully out of a text book entitled "Juvenile Justice: Policies, Programs, and Practices", and Regina was looking over the Killian Jones case files for what felt like the hundredth time. She and Gold had a court hearing for Jones in exactly two days, and while she was convinced of his innocence, she and Gold still could not prove it, so she was searching; looking for anything they might have missed that could help them give the jury reasonable doubt. Unfortunately, as much as she tried to focus, and as hard as she squinted at the pages of her notes, Regina could not get rid of the question that had been nagging in the back of her mind ever since she had answered Emma's call. Finally she gave up and set her papers down forcefully on the coffee table, turning to look at Emma, who still had her nose buried deep in her book. Regina cleared her throat before speaking.

"Can I ask you a question?" she inquired softly.

"Huh?" grunted Emma, finally looking up from her book to see Regina staring at her, a serious look playing across her delicate features. "Uh, sure go ahead," she said, looking up at Regina curiously.

"Why me?"

"What?" Emma responded blankly.

"Why me?" Regina asked again. "Why did you call me? I mean we barely know each other."

"Oh." Emma gulped, a little embarrassed. "Well, I don't really have a lot of people I can trust who care enough to come when I need them, but I trust you, and I knew you would come."

"How?"

"I don't know, it was just a feeling. I just knew. I wasn't wrong though," she smiled.

"No you weren't," Regina reflected, returning the smile.

"You know a hell of a lot more about me now though," Emma laughed, "I guess that means it's my turn to figure out some way to find out something new about you. Hmmm if only you had some dastardly ex that I could come save you from, then we could even the score." Regina chuckled at that.

"I'm afraid not, although I'm sure you'll dig up something on me. That however is a conversation for another day."

"In all seriousness though, I am extremely grateful for what you are doing for me. You may have saved my life, so thank you."

"You're welcome. It was the least I could do."

With one last intense look of gratitude, and understanding, the two silently turned back to their studies as they each had much to get done before morning.


	9. Difficult Decisions

**A/N:** Finally updating haha. This chapter is on the longer side so hopefully that makes up for how long it took me to post it. Thank you everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed, hope you are all still enjoying it!

* * *

The next morning, the two women went about their various morning routines getting ready for work, and there was an unspoken agreement that Regina would drive Emma to the precinct on her way to the law firm. Emma had slept in one of Regina's many guest bedrooms the night before, and Regina had lent Emma some cloths to wear to work. During the drive to the precinct they decided Regina would pick Emma up again around 5pm and they would drive back to Emma's apartment to see if Neal was still there. If he was gone, Emma would run in and pack some of her things, and then they would go back to Regina's mansion. Emma had protested this, arguing that if Neal was gone, she could just stay at her apartment, but Regina stood firm. She told her that they had no way of knowing whether or not Neal would come back, and she would rather know Emma was safe. Finally Emma relented, because she also knew that if she stayed in the apartment she would never sleep. She would be kept awake, listening to every sound, jumping at every creep of the old building, wondering if it was Neal trying to break in. They did not discuss how long this arrangement would stand, but it did not seem to be important to either of them, as long as Emma was safe.

Both woman were extremely on edge for the rest of the day, neither quite able to focus on their work. Not only were they still getting over the initial panic of the previous nights events, but they also needed to process the abrupt and extreme change in their relationship. In a few short hours, they had gone from being acquaintances leaning towards becoming friends, to possibly living together for the foreseeable future. Regina estimated they should give it at least a month or two before having Emma move back into her apartment, in an attempt to convince Neal that Emma had moved. Then they could at least hope he would never come back to bother her.

* * *

Regina was filing paper work in her office when she her cell phone went off. Usually she would not answer her cell phone during office hours, but she recognized the ring tone and picked up immediately.

"Allison!" she exclaimed into the phone, a little breathless from her rush to get to the phone. She had set a specific ring tone for the social worker after their initial contact so that she would know right away if they had information for her regarding Henry.

"Hello, is this Regina?" came the hesitant reply.

"Yes, this is she," Regina responded, managing to sound more put together now that she had sat back down at her desk and allowed herself to breath.

"Right. This is Allison Thompson from child protective services. I know you wanted to be kept in the loop regarding the investigation into Sally and Todd Dixon, the foster parents of Henry Wilson. I'm sorry we could not keep you more updated during the actual investigation, but that would have violated confidentiality laws. I do however have something pertaining to Henry to discuss with you."

"Oh, is he alright?" she asked, slightly confused as to what they would be discussing if the investigation was confidential.

"Yes, Henry is alright for now," Allison answered cautiously, trying to decide how to phrase her next question. "He has been removed from the Dixons' care as of last night, however we have run into a slight issue. In ideal circumstances, he would be transferred to a new foster family right away, however, we have no available families to take him in at the moment, so he has been placed in a group home. Now while this is better than the situation he was in with the Dixons, it is still not what he would prefer. I discussed it with him at length, and tried to help him understand that it would just be temporary until another foster family opened up, but he seemed to have other ideas …" she trailed off, taking a deep breath in preparation to ask the most imposing question she had ever had to ask someone. She knew she should never expect this of anyone in Regina's position, and she felt extremely guilty for putting Regina in a situation where she would have to make this decision, but Allison could not get look on Henry's face out of her mind. Before she had a chance to finish making her proposal though, Regina spoke.

"What were his other ideas? Is that why you are calling me?"

"Yes. Now I am going to ask you something. Give you a proposal in a sense, but I don't want you to feel obligated to answer one way or the other right now ok? It is in no way your obligation, nor should it be, and honestly I should not even be having this conversation with you, however I promised Henry I would ask. I'm sure you know how he is when he's determined," she said, laughing nervously. Immediately Regina knew what was going to be asked of her, and she felt all the air rush out of her lungs, as though she had been punched in the gut. Still she listened, her anxiety growing with every minute, for Allison to finish her proposal.

"Anyways, Henry informed me that he would like to live with you. It seems you have made quite an impression on him in your time volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club. I told him not to get his hopes up, as I know you are very young and have your own life, but he would not take no for an answer until he knew I had actually asked you. I know what I am asking will be a huge life changing responsibility, but I would like you to consider that it will most likely be temporary if we can find another foster family for him eventually, and there is cost compensation so you don't have to worry about how you will afford to take care of him while you're still in law school. I don't need an answer from you right away, but I would like you to consider it. It would mean a lot to Henry, and I honestly think it would be good for him. He seems to really love you, and I know you care about him, so I think it would help him to at least have the chance to spend some time with a caretaking who actually gives a damn about his life." There was silence across the phone line as Allison had laid out her proposal and had nothing left to say. Regina sat at her desk, slightly in shock. Did she love Henry? Yes. Did she want him to be happy? Of course. But could she really take responsibility for a child at this time in her life? She had no idea. She did not know how to be a mother, and her mother had definitely not been a good example to follow. When she finally found her voice again, she tried to answer as calmly and diplomatically as possible.

"I will think about it," is all she said, and then she hung up, letting the phone and her hand fall to the surface of her desk with a thump as she just sat staring straight ahead, mind reeling.

* * *

The drive home after work was nearly silent, and Regina found herself unsure how to talk to the young blonde woman now. She felt they had shared an extremely intimate experience, and Emma had opened up to her about such personal secrets that she now felt unsure of where they stood. Were they friends now? Was she supposed to talk about their conversations ever again, or should she just act like nothing happened and let Emma tell her things when she felt like it? She had no idea how to handle this situation, but she knew Emma was probably feeling extremely vulnerable. She was also battling with the dicision about Henry. She wasn't sure how long Emma would be staying with her now, but she knew she had to include Emma in making this decision if they were all to be under the same roof. However, instead of embarking on what she was sure would be a draining and emotional conversation, she decided to try to keep things as normal as possible for now.

"So," she finally said as she pulled into her driveway, "What do you want for dinner? I was thinking of making lasagna, but if that doesn't sound good to you, we could always order takeout from Granny's Diner." Emma looked up at her, from where she had been determinedly inspecting her own hands in her lap.

"Whatever is easier for you," she responded, "I can help with whatever you want. I don't want to be a burden."

"Hey," said Regina, reaching across to grasp the younger woman's hand. "You are never a burden. I want to do this for you." Their eye's locked, as they shared a charged look full of meaning. After a few minutes Regina continued,

"If you don't have a preference, I think I'll make lasagna. You are welcome to help if you would like, but you don't have to." Emma took a deep breath to steady herself before replying.

"That sounds amazing. Although I should warn you, I know pretty much nothing about cooking," she laughed lightly, allowing herself to relax, her hand still in Regina's grip.

"That is absolutely no problem," Regina responded with a grin, "I can teach you, and I have been told I am an amazing teacher, so you are in for a treat." She gave Emma an arrogant wink, and they both laughed, finally relaxing back into easy conversation.

As Emma hopped around the kitchen helping Regina prepare their meal, she thought this might actually be the best night she had had in her entire life. They were constantly laughing and teasing each other as Regina showed her how to layer the sauce and cheese over the noodles. At one point they even almost got into a food fight when Emma accidentally flicked some of the ricotta at Regina as she tried to scoop it out of the carton. It was the most carefree either of them had been in a long time, and throughout the rest of the evening they found themselves discussing everything from how their day was at work, to what wild adventures they had gotten into when whey were younger. Emma was constantly asking Regina about what it was like to go to a "normal" college, since she had never gotten the chance, and Regina tried to convince her that she hadn't missed out on much, although she couldn't quite pull it off when she started talking passionately about her time as president of the Equestrian Club.

Once they had finished dinner, Regina dropped Emma off at her apartment, as Neal and his gang were nowhere in sight, and then headed back home to put in some study hours. Even though she was off school for the summer, she figured it was never too early to start studying for the boards, so she forced herself to crack open her law books at least three nights a week.

Emma ran up to pack her suit case, and then hurried back out to get her trusty yellow VW bug, which she hadn't gotten to drive since her panicked escape the night before. She then set off for the community college, as she had a Criminal Justice lecture to attend at 8:00. She had told Regina to expect her back at the mansion around 9:30pm, and while she had greatly enjoyed their evening together, she felt extremely relieved to be off on her own again, able to drive her car and go do her own thing. She found she was never really great with having to rely on other people. She always seemed to do better if she knew she could take care of herself, although she thought maybe that was because no one had ever bothered to stick around long enough for her to be able to rely on them anyways.


End file.
